Blog Posts

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New Apiary (hopefully)

For a few years now I’ve wanted to have bees on our allotment plot. Couple of difficulties with the public fear of bees meant that I was blocked from having bees there – long story that I have told far too many times. Either way pending a (so far) 6 week council review period I am hoping to have bees on my plot.

Keeping bees on an allotment plot would generally be advised to be in an enclosure, to prevent bees interrupting gardening activities; driving the bees up above head height to prevent bee-line collisions on their way to forage. I had planned one before and got as far as put posts up in preparation for a netting enclosure. This then became a rose garden and an asparagus bed (which didn’t work out), which then became overgrown.

I decided to have a clear up preparing for the bees. Fortunately on most of the area I had put down weed blanket; less fortunately I had put down wood chip which seemed to have a habit of turning to soil covered in weeds. Luckily I had used decent weed blanket which has survived underneath and was up to some sustained trauma while I pulled and scraped weeds off the top.

After a fair few hours of work the area now looks a lot better, cleaned of weeds, a nice spot for a hive, with wood chippings on the floor. One post had rotted had to be replaced. Along the top of the posts I put a wire in place to hang the mesh from for the bees to fly over. Also in the area there is a water butt fed by the shed roof; I plan to float something on the water surface, as otherwise bees make a habit of drowning. Having a water source so close by should be good for the bees also, with shorter flights; also it should be good for other allotment holders as bees visiting water sources can be a cause for conflict.

So, cross fingers that I can start using the space for its intended purpose soon.

 

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Using pollen patties

Regarding pollen patties, I made a discovery. I had been putting them on with some cuts in the paper to allow access, over the crown board hole. Some loved them, others ignored them pretty much completely.

Then I put some on the top bars; there was more interest and they were getting into them.

Then I pealed them completely and pushed them down on the top bars. This resulted in them being rapidly consumed in all hives.

(At least I assume they were eaten – and not just thrown out.)

Lesson learnt.

Also I have artificial swarmed two hives, so I am going to add additional patties to those to build up the numbers.

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GOLD …gold

…just to paraphrase Spandau Ballet and in celebration of some of my lovely honey… well the bees honey really.

20150309_073911

It always looks so nice by the light of the warming cabinet – so I thought I would share the experience.

Not the best photo, but the experience of opening the cabinet door is somewhat similar to the scene in the diner in Pulp Fiction when they open the briefcase. Balmed in a warm golden glow of luxury edibles – at least thats how I see it … the other half shrieks that it is too bright.

There is a interesting point luxury edibles. Is honey a luxury item or a basic foodstuff ? Discuss…

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Varroa destruction

Late last year I did apply varroa treatment in the form of Apilife var as is my usual choice, erring on the natural side of ‘remedies’ with thymol (thyme oil). Earlier in the year I had tried predator mites, with unknown success  or otherwise given I could not get a mite drop from which to start measuring.

This year I’ve started with a slightly stronger tack, following methods discussed by LASI, using oxalic acid vapourised with heat into the hive. I’ve kept away from oxalic before, as while it is ‘relatively natural’, existing in rhubarb leaves for one, dribbling it over the brood has some rumors of being far from effective and more of being damaging to bee mouth parts; right at the time when they are in low numbers, they need to use their mouth parts with most urgency and also not being in a position to being readily replaced.

The process is relatively easily facilitated with a varrox vapouriser, the process being to put oxalic acid powder, put in the hive entrance, seal up the hive relatively well and then stand well back and connect the battery. The bees will be somewhat aggravated and will try to fan the vapour out so leaving open the varroa floor is a bad idea. The  vapour being a white misty gas can be seen after 20 seconds or so escaping from cracks and joints. DON’T BREATHE THE FUMES, they cause irreparable lung damage. A face mask and keeping up-wind of the hive is strongly suggested.

Varroxing bees

After two and a half minutes the oxalic will all of have been vapourised, disconnect the battery and wait a further 2 mins. On taking the vapouriser out be aware it will be hot – oh and watch out for upset bees when you are unblocking the hole.

Remember I said it was hot, well that means letting it cool before putting more oxalic in the heating dish – from personal experience – stop adding more and back away.

Oh and also when it is inserted be careful not no having it touching any handing wax or the whole hive could set on fire… One way to avoid this, and something you will likely have to do on a WBC (as they have floors that slope up to the frames) is to put an empty super under the brood to give enough height clearance.

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Beexwax polish

Last year I made some beeswax polish. After a while I managed to sell it. People really liked it and asked for more. So this year, from my cappings wax haul, I decided I would make some more.

Beeswax Recipe 1.

Equal parts beeswax and turpentine

Method

  1. Liquefy the wax by heating – do this in a ban marie so it doesn’t overheat and keep away from naked flames.
  2. Pour the turpentine in – this is flammable too, so be careful. also keep the area well ventilated, the fumes are not good for you.
  3. Some of the beeswax with solidify, keep warming until its all liquid.
  4. Pour into tins, allow to cool & solidify, use as you wish

pro’s and cons

  • This is simple to do
  • The product is a hard wax, it requires hard work to apply it, but it gives a very good ‘hard’ finish on wood
  • Turpentine gives good penetration into the wood for a long lasting effect
  • Turpentine is expensive
  • Turpentine is hard to find in the shops, usually replaced by turpentine substitute which wont do the job here.
  • Turpentine is not nice stuff *

* Wikipedia says
“As an organic solvent, its vapour can irritate the skin and eyes, damage the lungs and respiratory system, as well as the central nervous system when inhaled, and cause renal failure when ingested, among other things. Being combustible, it also poses a fire hazard. Due to the fact that turpentine can cause spasms of the airways particularly in people with asthma and whooping cough, it can contribute to a worsening of breathing issues in persons with these diseases if inhaled.”

Beeswax Recipe 2.

As above but also add a 3rd equal part of raw linseed oil, added after the turpentine.

Pro’s and cons

  • Makes for a softer compound and is easier to work.
  • Apparently works very well treating leather to make it waterproof.
  • Cheaper overall as less expensive than turpentine.
  • Still contains pretty nasty turpentine

Last year I made some of recipe 1 and some of recipe 2. Recipe 2 sold better, being easier to work and I think looking more brown. This year I’ve made more of that recipe, and used up all the turpentine that I bought.

Now I have found an option which doesn’t use turpentine. The question is, will it work as well?

Beeswax Recipe 3.

  • 1 part beeswax
  • 3-4 parts olive oil (some say this is replaceable with coconut oil, jojoba oil, walnut oil, etc.)
  • optional : Essential oils for scent (lavender, vanilla, sandalwood, etc)

Method

  1. put all together,
  2. warm

Pros and cons

  • Less flammable issues
  • Easier access to ingredients
  • Much cheaper ingredients
  • More natural product
  • Less harmful chemical concerns in preparation and in final product usage (e.g. kids toys)
  • Some concerns over oils going rancid, can be extended by fridge storage and/or Anti-oxidant such as clear Grapefruit Seed
  • Extract or Vitamin E oil can be added. However these antioxidant essential oils are very expensive

Queries

  • Will this recipe penetrate as well, so will the finish last as long as the turpentine recipes.
  • Concerns over the product going rancid – a) shelf life an issue & b) after application is there still risk of it going rancid in situ?
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Wax on wax off

So many supers, so many frames; Finally its all spun out. Buckets and buckets of cappings, most of them relatively dry due to using an uncapping fork lifting the cappings off the honey cells above the air gap.

As before I wanted to clean the wax to use in lip balm, beeswax polish, etc. I found out the hard way that just heating it is unwise, you end up with a brown mess, you need to wash the honey out of it first. This has a nice side effect, basically, making mead. So to do so I put buckets at a time of cappings into a straining bag and washed them. Then straining them I used the washing water, now full of honey, to make mead. Just to understand the scale of this, I made 13 Gallons (uk) of mead.

Then it was time to melt down the wax. Now when it started it looked a lot like white sandy flakes, I added some rainwater (our local water is hard and that turns wax greenish). On heating all this brown gunk was produced along with the nice clean wax, even though there wasn’t a lot of brown going in, so I don’t know what that was. Anyway after decanting in bowls I waited for it to cool then scrapped the brown stuff off the bottom and heated it again. After a couple of rounds the wax is ‘mostly’ clean and the volume has gone down a lot; when I melt it again to make things I will decant it off the last of the gunk. End score 2.68kg 🙂

A tower of wax blocks shaped by bowls, sitting on a scale showing 2.68kg
Tower of wax
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Busy Busy Busy

Its that time of the year when its harvesting and hard work, and the interest in bees becomes a bit of a burden. Trying to keep up with moving hives and rotating supers to spin the honey off to give the bees enough room so they wont do an unwise late swarm.

Harvest so far this year, as extracted, is just short of 300lbs, but that’s not the end of the story. I have 13 supers taken off and not extracted yet so another 325lb hopefully and about another 9 supers that need to be taken off yet, so another 225lb hopfully. So I might get to 800lb all told. Last year was about 340lb in total so its going in the right direction.

Some hives have done stunningly well, one of which was a nuc this year and has brought in almost as much as the very best which I think is going to round up to about 150lb.

This year, I’ve found that :

  • 4oz jars sell well for people that just want to try something (so more of those to order)
  • jars are hard to find when you’re running out, buy lots when you find them cheap
  • a good stand is not hard to make, but if you leave them on a field alone people will steal them (Grrr…)
  • you never have enough supers ready
  • raising your own queens is a very good idea, apart from ability to improve your stock, it means that you will have spare mated queens if you have an unfortunate / sudden queen loss
  • if you have a mean hive, re-queen and don’t let the drones mate with any queens you want to use.
  • I need to keep better records – once again I didn’t manage to keep up full records throughout.

As I have a couple of queens left over from queen rearing I am going to split a couple of hives at the end of the year and overwinter as nucs.

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Strateolaelaps

So at the start of the year I planned an experiment. Trialing mites that are supposed to kill varroa mites, strateolaelaps scimitus ( try saying that after a drink or two ). Anyway the plan was establish a varroa drop rate, then use the above mites then see how that changes things vs a control group of no treatment and another group using api life var treatment.
Well the best laid plans got scrapped when in all my hives I got no mite drop. Does that mean I have no mites, well no, because later in a hive I spotted deformed wing virus and went hunting and found mites on the comb; and still there was no drop. So they are clinging on ehh !! Well we will have to do something about that.

Unfortunately my hives are in ‘flux’, ie artifical swarm, swarm, mysteriously queenless, etc. So there is no controlled or fair experiment I can carry out given such variety and a small sample size in the first place.

I need to do something really about the varroa (or maybe not, but I’m going to anyway), so I bought my tube of varroa munching mites and I am going to put them in about 4 hives asap.

I won’t get anything but a gut feeling as to if it has worked, but I will at least have tried, and normally I only treat in autumn so the bees are getting more than they would otherwise.

Wish them luck.

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Another beehive stand

Some of you may remember in my post of ‘how to make a double beehive stand‘ that I mentioned a friend who made one around the same time. The friend, Dave Eacott, said he would be ok with me showing where he got to with his DIY creativity.

“Please find attached pictures of my new hive stand.
It is not as robust as yours I was looking for something lighter that could be easily carried in the car. I did not shop around for best prices everything came from Wickes.
I have a few items left over that I could use on my next stand.
It cost around £25.00”

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Queen-tastic

Hooray ! The queen from my early queen rearing exploits has been mated and is laying. My first (purposeful) queen-reared queen. My first green queen of the year, marked and clipped. She has a big golden abdomen,  far larger than last week when she was still a virgin.

Quick sideline – queens are marked in relation to their year. I mark mine the year they were born, others mark them for their first full year, i.e. the year after they are born. As long as you are consistent in which you chose its not a problem.

Year ending :

1 or 6 – White
2 or 7 – Yellow
3 or 8 – Red
4 or 9 – Green
5 or 0 – Blue

As it is 2014, my queen is marked green.

You can remember the order by the memnomic “When You Read Good Books”.

Actually talking about marking if you buy a ‘queen marking pen’ from a bee equipment vendor, you will pay between £4.50 and £6 for one pen. If you search for exactly the same pen by its brand name (on ebay, Amazon, Google etc) then you can get one for £2.10 to £2.50. Better still you get more choice of what colour, for example I have a lovely light green which shows up in the hive far better than the standard dark green and similarly with the blue. So search for “Posca 5” and save, getting about 50% off. No, I am not on commission,  I am just annoyed at people bumping up the prices on beekeepers for things.

Anyway,  I have a new queen and a super calm hive so I’m happy. More good news is the colony she came from had to be artificial swarmed today so I am going to have a few more of these lovely ladies by harvesting the emergency cells and bringing them on in mini mating hives.